Nobody moved.
Ignis had his snout pressed flat against the stone floor, his eyes squeezed shut so tight his crooked horn was shaking.
Kiran stood frozen behind the stump of the broken bridge, his fingers resting on the grip of the steel wrench.
Out in the middle of the dark void, forty feet away, the wooden tram hung from its four thick iron cables.
Clinging to the underside of the planks were the three pale crawlers.
They looked like giant, white ticks with legs as long and thin as iron fence bars.
Their bodies were pale and hairless, shaped like flattened leather sacks.
They had no eyes or heads—just a sharp, black beak at the front of their bodies, clicking in slow, wet rhythms.
Their legs were black as coal, ending in needles so sharp they had pierced two inches deep into the petrified oak beams of the platform.
Every few seconds, one of their needle-legs would lift, tap the iron cable, and freeze.
They weren’t looking around.
They were listening through the metal.
“Spindle-crawlers,” Torven whispered, his breath barely moving the dust on the ledge.
“Blind as stones.
But if a pebble drops on that iron wire, they’ll be on your neck before it hits the bottom.”
[JYOTI]
Target: Spindle-Crawler (Adult, subterranean).
Armor: Fragile abdomen, dense bone-spike legs.
Sensory mechanism: Acoustic resonance through solid surfaces.
Threat level: High if swarmed.
Can we jump the gap?
Kiran thought.
[JYOTI]
The gap is eighty-two feet across.
Host’s maximum recorded jump distance: 9 feet.
Result of attempt: Sudden deceleration at the bottom of the chasm.
I meant the dragons, Kiran thought back with an irritated grimace.
Beside him, Vaelgor looked out at the broken stone stump on the other side of the gorge.
The big drake’s scarred wing gave an involuntary twitch, pulling tight against his ribs.
“I cannot clear eighty feet on three legs,” Vaelgor rumbled in a voice so low it was just a vibration in the bedrock.
“Not without a wing to catch the draft.
And the old smith has no wings at all.”
“Then we need the cart,” Kiran whispered.
He crept toward the right side of the bridge stump, keeping his weight on the balls of his wrapped feet.
Anchored into the solid granite of the cliff wall was a heavy iron winch drum.
A thick iron cable was wrapped around it a dozen times, leading out into the dark to hold the near side of the tram.
Coming off the drum was a long iron crank handle, fitted with a heavy ratchet pawl that locked into a toothed wheel.
It was the same kind of manual winch his father used on the boat trailer at the lake, just five times larger and covered in black grease that had dried into thick tar.
“The miners used to wind it back to this side to load ore,” Torven murmured, shuffling up behind him with agonizing slowness.
“The counter-weights on the far side keep the line tight.
If you lift the brake pawl, the drum spins free.
But the gears will scream like a dying pig.
The rust is thick.”
Kiran knelt beside the iron drum.
He didn’t touch the crank handle yet.
He looked at the heavy ratchet pawl—a wedge of iron the size of his shoe that was resting between two rusted teeth of the gear.
If he just yanked it, the tension on the cable would cause the drum to screech, and the iron wire would ring like a church bell all the way out to the tram.
“If we make noise, they crawl up the ropes,” Kiran said quietly.
“Can you kill them with fire, Vaelgor?” Ignis squeaked, peeking out from behind a stone block.
“If I blow fire across that gap,” Vaelgor growled, “the heat will burn the old wood of the tram to ash.
Then the cables drop, and we have no road at all.”
“Then we don’t use fire,” Kiran said.
He looked at the black grease caked around the base of the gear shaft.
It was thick, hard, and cold as rock.
He pulled the jar of bone-salve from his back pocket and unscrewed the cork.
The minty, earthy smell puffed into the cold air.
“What are you doing with the medicine?” Torven rasped, his cloudy eyes widening.
“That grease is for your marrow!”
“Medicine is just clean grease,” Kiran muttered.
“If it stops friction in my bones, it will stop friction in this iron.”
He dipped his fingers into the jar, scooping out a thick, cold glob of the amber fat.
He smeared it heavily across the teeth of the gear, working the salve deep into the rusted groove right beneath the ratchet pawl.
The moment it touched the red rust, a faint, cool hiss rose from the metal.
The thick orange crust seemed to soften, turning into a slick, dark paste that coated the iron teeth.
[JYOTI]
Lubricant applied to mechanical interface.
Acoustic friction reduced by 85%.
“Now,” Kiran whispered, looking at Vaelgor.
“I’m going to lift the pawl.
The cable is going to pull the drum.
I need you to brace your front foot against the rim of the wheel.
Do not let it spin fast.
Let it roll inch by inch.”
Vaelgor looked at the iron wheel, then down at his massive front claw.
“An imperial drake using his foot as a wagon brake,” Vaelgor grunted, but he stepped forward anyway, pressing the thick, calloused pad of his claw firmly against the iron rim.
Kiran took a slow, deep breath through his nose.
He sank the air deep into his belly, letting the warm knot wake up behind his navel.
The dense strength rolled out through his shoulders, down into his leather bracers.
The cold-iron splints strapped along his forearms hummed quietly, steadying his hands.
He grabbed the flat handle of the steel wrench, wedged the tip beneath the heavy ratchet pawl, and slowly lifted.
Ssssssk.
There was no loud crack.
The grease soaked up the sound, turning the sharp strike of metal into a dull, wet slide.
The heavy iron wedge lifted out of the gear notch.
The drum groaned as sixty tons of tension pulled on the cable.
Vaelgor’s muscles bunched.
The scales along the drake’s shoulder rippled like iron plates as he pushed his weight down against the spinning wheel.
The drum turned.
Clack…
clack…
clack…
It was slow.
Agonizingly slow.
The thick cable wound onto the drum with a low, heavy groaning sound, like an old ship pulling against an anchor.
Out in the black void, the wooden tram began to slide across the chasm, creeping toward their ledge foot by foot.
Thirty feet out.
Twenty-five feet.
Then, one of the pale crawlers under the platform shifted.
Its long, needle-sharp front leg tapped the iron cable.
The vibration of the moving drum hummed straight through the steel wire into the beast’s limb.
The creature’s body went rigid.
Its black beak opened with a sharp, wet click.
It didn’t drop into the dark.
With terrifying speed, the horse-sized beast scrambled out from beneath the platform, scuttling up onto the top deck of the tram.
Its four long bone legs clicked against the oak planks like sewing needles on a wooden floor.
Its blunt, pale snout turned straight toward the ledge where they stood.
Behind it, the other two crawlers pulled themselves up over the edge of the wood, their pale bodies trembling with sudden agitation.
“Hold the drum!” Kiran hissed.
Vaelgor locked his claw against the wheel, his jaw clenched tight.
The tram stopped fifteen feet from their ledge, swaying gently over the black drop.
The first crawler didn’t hesitate.
It crouched low on the front edge of the wooden platform, its four bone-legs coiling like iron springs.
THUMP.
The beast launched itself off the tram, flying across the fifteen feet of open air straight toward the ledge.
“Look out!” Ignis shrieked.
The crawler slammed down onto the stone shelf right in front of Kiran, its needle legs punching four inches deep into the solid granite with a sickening crunch.
Dust and rock chips exploded outward.
The creature’s sharp black beak whipped around, aimed directly at Kiran’s throat.
Kiran didn’t back up.
He didn’t have room to back up; the drop was right behind him, and Vaelgor was holding the winch drum with all his strength.
Breathe!
Kiran drove his air deep into his gut, locking his hips into the stone.
He threw his left forearm up, bracing his cold-iron miner’s bracer right in front of his face.
CLANG!
The crawler’s black beak struck the blue-grey metal plate on Kiran’s arm with the force of an iron sledgehammer.
A shower of orange sparks lit up the dark cavern.
The impact shook Kiran all the way down to his heels.
His teeth rattled in his jaw, and his left boot slid back two inches against the gravel.
But the cold-iron splint held.
The metal plate absorbed the shock, and the tempered marrow inside his arm bones didn’t crack.
“Get off!” Kiran roared.
Using the crawler’s own momentum against it, Kiran stepped forward with his right foot, brought the heavy steel wrench around in a short, brutal arc, and slammed the flat end directly into the beast’s pale, soft abdomen.
SPLAT.
The rubbery hide ruptured like a wet sack.
A thick, foul spray of grey, milky fluid exploded over the stone floor, hissing where it touched the cold rock.
The crawler let out a high, vibrating squeal, its needle-legs thrashing wildly in the air.
Before it could strike again, a massive, clawed paw slammed down on its back.
Torven had moved.
The old, wingless smith didn’t have speed, but he had the pure, unyielding mass of an ancient dragon.
He drove his heavy front foot down with all his weight, grinding the crawler’s pale body into the stone until its hollow bone legs snapped like dry branches.
The beast twitched once, its black beak clicking weakly, and then went limp.
On the tram fifteen feet away, the remaining two crawlers stopped.
Their pale snouts twitched, smelling the sour, milky fluid of their dead pack-mate pooling on the ledge.
They didn’t charge.
Subterranean beasts had no pride; they only understood food and danger.
With frantic, clicking scrapes, the two surviving crawlers backed away to the far edge of the wooden platform, turned around, and scrambled over the side, disappearing into the cracks of the chasm wall below.
The cavern went quiet again, save for the heavy, rhythmic panting of Vaelgor at the winch drum.
Torven lifted his bloody foot, wiping a smear of grey fluid off his scales against the stone.
He looked down at Kiran, whose left arm was still raised, the steel bracer smoking faintly from the strike.
“You took a crawler’s beak on your arm,” Torven rasped, his voice full of disbelief.
“A full-grown crawler can punch through an ore wagon with that beak.”
Kiran lowered his arm, breathing hard through his nose.
His forearm was numb and tingling, but when he opened and closed his fingers, his hand moved cleanly.
The bone was solid.
[JYOTI]
Impact survived.
Cold-Iron Bracer integrity: 94%.
Bone Tempering tested under direct blunt trauma: No structural failure.
Cultivation Progress: Iron Breath reached 15.0%.
“The metal held,” Kiran wheezed, wiping a drop of cold sweat from his forehead.
He turned back to the winch drum.
“Vaelgor.
Pull it the rest of the way.”
Vaelgor gave a slow nod, his golden eye burning with quiet focus.
The big drake leaned into the wheel again, letting the cable wind the final fifteen feet.
With a dull, heavy thump of wood against stone, the ancient tram platform swung into the notch of the broken bridge, resting flat against their ledge.
It was twenty feet wide, built from thick planks of black oak bound together with rusted iron bands.
It looked battered, scarred by claws and age, but the iron frame was solid.
“Get on,” Vaelgor rumbled, stepping his front paws onto the wood.
The platform groaned under his massive weight, tilting slightly, but the four heavy cables held firm.
Ignis scrambled aboard next, staying low to the planks, followed by Torven.
Kiran stepped onto the wood last, kneeling at the edge to grab the release lever that controlled the counter-weight line to the far side.
He looked down through the cracks between the oak planks.
Below them was nothing but an endless, pitch-black void.
A freezing draft blew up from the deep, carrying a faint, distant hum that vibrated right through the soles of his shoes.
It wasn’t the wind.
It was a deep, rhythmic thrumming, like a massive heart beating miles beneath the mountain.
“Sector 6 is on the other side,” Torven murmured, his eyes fixed on the dark tunnel opening waiting across the chasm.
“The air is different over there.
Cold.
The deep seam is right below it.”
Kiran gripped the release lever, his knuckles white against the iron.
“Hold on,” he said.
He shoved the lever forward, and the tram glided out into the dark.